Conductor

 

Since its founding in 2012, Dick van Gasteren has been the conductor and artistic director of Ciconia – The Hague String Orchestra, formerly Ciconia Consort. In addition, Van Gasteren is a regular guest conductor of the famous Orquesta Simón Bolívar, which he has led in symphonies by Schumann, Bruckner, and Mahler, among others. He also regularly conducts other Venezuelan orchestras of ‘El Sistema’, such as Francisco de Miranda and Teresa Carreño, and, as a teacher at the Conservatorio Itinerante de Venezuela, he gives conducting lessons and masterclasses to talented young conductors.

Dick van Gasteren studied cello, orchestral conducting, art history, and law. He began his musical education at the age of nine as a cellist and continued his studies at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague with Anner Bijlsma (Master’s degree 1988). He studied orchestral conducting with Jan Stulen (Higher Certificate 1990), followed by lessons with Bernard Haitink in London. He studied Art History and Law at Leiden University, where he obtained his Master of Laws degree in 2003.

Van Gasteren took cello masterclasses with Heinrich Schiff and Godfried Hoogeveen, among others, substituted with several Dutch orchestras, and gave recitals throughout the Netherlands, including in the Small Hall of the Concertgebouw. ​​He was a laureate at the conducting masterclass of the ‘Accademia Musicale Chigiana’ in Siena under the direction of Ferdinand Leitner and at the Wiener Meisterkurs. As Haitink’s assistant, he conducted the Fernorchester at a concert by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra during the Mahler Festival Amsterdam (1995).

Dick van Gasteren was a guest conductor with the Limburg Symphony Orchestra and the North Holland Philharmonic Orchestra, among others, presenting various concert programs. As part of the Pasar Malam, he conducted six sold-out performances of the Dutch-Indonesian opera Attima (1917) by Constant van de Wall at the Royal Theatre in The Hague. Abroad, he conducted numerous opera productions at the Oldenburgisches Staatstheater (Don Pasquale, Die Fledermaus, Othello, and Elektra) and conducted the Wiener Klangforum Orchester and the Nürnberger Symphoniker with works by Stravinsky (The Firebird), Beethoven (Fifth Symphony), Mendelssohn (Italian Symphony), Respighi, Saint-Saëns, and Berlioz, among others.

In 2003, he appeared in two episodes of the television program ‘Het Klokhuis’, which focused on the profession of conductor. In October 2010, his book ‘Over jeugdorkesten en de didactiek van het dirigeren’ was published by Walburgpers. In addition, he published several Dutch symphonic works by Johannes Josephus Viotta that he had rediscovered.

For ten years, Dick van Gasteren successfully led the Viotta Orchestra in major works of orchestral literature (Stravinsky, Strauss, Mahler, Bruckner, Rachmaninov, and Shostakovich) and was regularly seen and heard with this orchestra in major concert halls such as the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, as well as on Dutch radio and television. Furthermore, five successful foreign tours (including Prague, Florence, Salzburg, and Venice) can be looked back upon with satisfaction. In the summer of 2007, he led the Viotta Orchestra to first prize in the international orchestral competition Summa Cum Laude and conducted the closing concert in the Golden Hall of the Wiener Musikverein.